


stop making me like you

by baehj2915



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Road Trips, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:52:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: Scenes from the Kaylie & Scanlan Road Trip We Will Never Get to SeeA few weeks after the VM break up, depressed gnomes with complicated feelings are traveling.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Scanlan so much. I had to actually resort to writing about it. This is not as funny as Scanlan & Kaylie can be bc they're both being a little honest and depressed. 
> 
> The only warning I think you need to know is that Kaylie is drunk and vomity, but not explicitly described. If you can't handle vomit, avoid. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~*~*~

Kaylie was beginning to regret that fifth pint. 

Not the sixth one, but that fifth one was coming back up on her. It made the half full seventh one in front of her look pretty unappetizing too. She was also thinking she shouldn’t have had those shots when she arrived either. 

She hopped off the barstool to move around, get some exercise to alleviate the gross pull of her stomach. She took exactly three steps before she understood how deeply that was not going to help. She should have stayed put. She should, in fact, sink down to the floor and not move for the next twenty to thirty years. 

Sometime later, probably less than twenty years, a male voice tall above her said, “I can help you to my room if you’d want a better place to lay, sweetheart.” 

She pulled out her sword from her position on the floor and whipped it to the right where she’d more or less heard it. After a few dancing footsteps and small yelp, she laughed. 

“Fucking mad bitch,” the voice said before retreating thuds on the floor that reverberated in her head. 

There were a few more voices going around, not necessarily addressing her, but she stayed on the floor. It was a grounding presence. 

“Ha, get it, _grounding_.” 

She waited for a laugh, but remembered she’d left Scanlan chatting up a landlord at a different pub to line up a bit of work. She didn’t think getting pissed up at a potential venue would garner them many tips and she wanted to get a break from Scanlan anyway. He hadn’t been getting on her nerves at all lately, which in itself got on her nerves. A few weeks with him under her belt had taught her that by far and away the most infuriating thing about Scanlan was how disgustingly affable and calming he could be. 

So she’d set off for some alone time. 

Only now there were definitely voices penetrating her alone time, asking her to get off the floor and pay for her drinks and put her damned sword away, you rat arsed gnome piece of shit. She may or may not have grabbed one of these voices by the pantleg and stabbed her sword into or around its foot. 

Not intentionally. Not _entirely_ intentionally. It was hard to get traction on her feet. 

Everything became a lot less grounded when strong hands grabbed her swordarm and the back of her neck and shook violently. The view around her became both very vibrant and blurry at the same time. None of any of this was doing her insides any favors. She was pretty certain her internals had just been liquefied. Something about being paid for the trouble was yelled very loudly from the general vicinity of the inside of her skull. 

She wanted to say she had coin, but the threat of liquid insides pouring out of her mouth was closer than the words. 

With annoyingly perfect timing, the image of Scanlan strode into the pub and the gentle cadence of Scanlan’s voice floated somewhere above her head. Kaylie was too busy keeping herself inside herself to really focus on the actual words, but the hands on her softened. 

She swallowed hard, the burning sickness of used alcohol and vomit traced down her throat. But it made it easier to pay attention. 

Scanlan’s voice was still gentle, but apparently what he was saying wasn’t very. “…see my position here. I’ve no doubt she’s caused you some trouble, but that’s my daughter you’re manhandling. I don’t think that’s very polite either.” 

The hand on the back of her neck was relaxed enough that she could look up from the floor now. She looked up past Scanlan’s tense shoulders and cold, long stare over her head to the looming gigantic floating purple arcane hand above them all. Everyone else in the pub was looking at it too. Its enormous fingers flexed minutely every other second, as if waiting to grasp something. It hovered a foot or so above Scanlan and its knuckles scraped the ceiling of the pub. 

“Look, just give us the payment for drink and damages and we’ll let you go. No harm. There’s no need to bring the law into it.”

“That sounds perfectly amenable,” Scanlan said. Behind him a man moved closer from the bar. She tried to catch Scanlan’s eyes to give him a clue, but his eyes didn’t waver from the man holding her. 

A different scowling man to the side hopped forward, a spot of blood on one of his leather boots. “She stabbed me in the foot!” 

Scanlan’s hand clenched against his leg, and then the looming magic hand turned into a fist. “I’ll throw in a healing potion just for you.”

The man looked like he wanted to argue, but took a second look at the glowing hand and kept his mouth shut. A distant kernel of joy bloomed in Kaylie’s chest. Fuckin’ right, you keep your mouth shut, she wanted to say. Fuckin’ right, you don’t mess with the wrong gnomes, she wanted to say. She didn’t, and didn’t know whether it was the imminent feeling of vomit or the imminent feeling of pride in her father that kept the words at bay. 

Scanlan pulled a small purse out of some hidden pocket in his doublet, holding it aloft. “Let go of my daughter, friend, then you’ll have your coin.” 

It took a moment, but the man released Kaylie. She couldn’t help but stumble forward a bit. Scanlan held out his hand with a little pleading look to his eyes. Eyeing the man behind Scanlan, who was inching forward, she took his hand and nodded. 

“The gold,” the big man behind Kaylie said. 

Scanlan threw the little purse towards him. “There’s close to fifty gold, some coppers.”

As he was counting the satchel, the one with the limp demanded his healing potion. Scanlan’s giant glowing fist help up one impatient finger.

The big man smiled unkindly down at Scanlan. “Somethin’ tells me with your fine clothes you’ve got more coin about you.” He called out, “Reg.” The sound of a bolt shuttering in a door clunked loudly behind them. 

“I was hoping they wouldn’t do something like this.” Scanlan raised a dark eyebrow at her, as though they were alone and sharing a confidence. 

The big man laughed. “Yeah, somethin’ else tells me that even with your fancy magic hand two gnomes, one drunk off her arse and all, won’t put up much of a fight against me and my lads. So just hand over what you really got, and you get to walk out of here with your daughter instead of crawl.” 

Kaylie moved to step forward, but Scanlan squeezed her hand with a sigh. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you should really get whatever is telling you these things looked at. It’s not good for your health.” 

The big man opened his mouth wide to retort but was abruptly cut off by a purple hand twice his size punching him into the wall fifteen paces behind him. 

Apparently Scanlan had the same thought as Kaylie and they raced for the dropped bag of gold in tandem. 

In a flash the other men, now very angry, leapt toward them and the giant magic hand was slamming down. Before she could find out if the hand would smash them into jelly before the men got to them, the air thinned and the vision of the pub and the men and the enormous hand was pulled from her at great speed. Blackness surrounded her and disappeared leaving only a shimmering purple haze in the periphery. They were outside, in a road, around different people. A few looked twice at the sudden appearance of gnomes, but no one stopped. 

Kaylie would’ve said to warn her before cutting through dimensional space if she hadn’t immediately vomited. 

Scanlan patted her back. “There you go. Get it all out.” 

She spat on the ground, feeling too wrung out to straighten up and keep moving. She could feel him leaning over her, first stuffing the purse back into his doublet and then easing his hands around her shoulders. She wanted to shake him off, or elbow him, just because the touch felt so nice. It shouldn’t have; she hated men and their touch especially. A comforting touch from Scanlan shouldn’t have felt so… comforting. Grimly, she realized it was probably because she had stopped thinking of Scanlan as _some man_. His hand on her shoulder felt closer to the last time her mother had held her after a hug than the memory of any other man inviting himself to her body and her space.

With a groan she grabbed his forearm to lean on, bringing herself up, if only to avoid looking at her vomit. 

“You ready?” He said with a bright, fake smile. 

“No? For what?” 

“Hold onto your guts, kid. We’re going again.” 

Kaylie’s eyes may have left her skull. “N—“

The air funneled away from her again. Void. Purple shimmer. The acid taste in mouth that hadn’t actually gone away returned stronger when a dark alley against a very different looking set of buildings popped up around them. 

“—OOoh. Oh, no. Oh shit.” 

Kaylie reflexively bent over when her guts dropped all to way to her feet. Scanlan leapt to her side again quickly, expecting splatter, and patted her back. 

“No shame in horking again.” 

“Ugghh, shut up.” 

After a moment of waiting for something to come back up, Scanlan hummed a sweet tune without words and something warmed in her chest. She still felt bleary and drained, but the soreness around her neck and wrist where the barkeep had held her faded. Her stomach shook but she was pretty certain it wasn’t going to empty again, at least immediately. 

Scanlan took an ivory carving and a tiny silver spoon out of one of his many pockets. “Can you look out for a bit while I cast the mansion? I doubt they’ll chase after us; they’ve no way of knowing which direction we went in. But I’d rather get us safely in the mansion as soon as possible.” 

Kaylie didn’t even know what direction they’d gone, but she nodded. She faced the alley entrance, albeit in the shadows. Her sword, which had been in her hand the entire time, mostly grazing the ground, molded to her grip more tightly. Considering the piece of magic the mansion was, it didn’t take very long for Scanlan to put together. It was the same amount of time as always but Kaylie felt nervous and queasy and suddenly clear-headed while she waited the long minute. 

Once the glowing door appeared, Kaylie sheathed the Singing Dawnblade and touched her father’s arm as she passed him, trying to return a piece of the reassurance he had given her. It was a bit unnatural, as she was unused to doing such things in general. She hurried into the mansion. 

Stepping into the mansion was still novel and still fucking insane. 

Kaylie had never slept in any place as grand, let alone one conjured on a separate magical plane. The high ceiling of the mansion’s hall glittered with golden light encased in glass chandeliers. The staircase that led to the upper level was thick, dark polished marble. There were plants and statues. Even with that one truly terrible drawing pasted to the wall, it was probably the most beautiful thing Kaylie had ever seen. 

Stepping into the mansion frightened her sometimes. 

One of the spectral servants wafted near her to ask if she needs anything. She just walked past trying to wave it away, but Scanlan instructed it to make sure she had a pitcher of water in her room. 

She stopped in her tracks on the stairs. “Thank you,” she said without turning around. 

“Just make sure you drink plenty of water. You’ll have less of a headache in the morning.” 

She looked back at him. “I’ve had my share of hangovers before.” 

“So have I. Not a fan, myself.” 

“I meant thank you for saving my stupid arse.” 

His dark eyes were shining and he smiled, but it looked more like a confused frown. He looked like he’d been given something precious and didn’t know what to do with it. It was an expression she found a bit pathetic as well as familiar. 

“You’re not stupid. And you don’t need to thank me for that.” 

“Yeah, I do. I appreciate it, Scanlan.” 

He cleared his throat nervously. Nerves were a strange look on him. She had a good sense of the depth of his masquerade, but he’d been strained this time around. Kaylie didn’t know if it was from coming back to life or dying in the first place or just leaving his friends, but he was much less polished now than any other time she’d met him. The past few weeks had their ups and downs in his act. It seemed he could only put on his full charm offensive in front of a stranger who give them help on their way to Kymal. 

She was only just beginning to understand how strange Scanlan was. He was still the talented musician and liar he’d been when she was chasing him down for a fight. Contrary to what she always thought, he was knowledgeable on the road and resourceful when confronted by thieves and thugs—several of whom had seen two small gnomes as easy, travelling targets and had been proved wrong. He was more powerful than she expected. After seeing the mansion for the first time her low expectations had given way to not wanting to inquire. She would never say so aloud, but she knew he was more powerful than her. 

But he didn’t seem to notice. And the new cracks in his demeanor revealed to the anger and sadness she had overheard that day they left Whitestone. 

He was on the verge of tears over this. To be fair, she was surprised too. Even two weeks ago, she never ever would’ve expected to hear thanks towards Scanlan leave her own mouth. 

It was intensely uncomfortable to watch. 

“You’ve got good timing,” she said. “Must be your many, many years of wizened experience in effect.” 

“Must be.” 

She wanted to just go to her room, but something stayed her feet. She growled through her teeth. “I would’ve been fine if… But I’m glad you found me when you did. Thank you. You need to… I’m inclined to give you short shrift, rightly so, but I appreciate things when they’re done well. So I appreciate it.” 

Scanlan nodded solemnly. “Thank you, Kaylie.” 

“We understand each other?” 

“I think so.”

“Then don’t look so glum, for fuck’s sake. You’re doing pretty good.” 

He let out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “You know, I want to say the same thing to you.” 

Kaylie fought against tightening her fists. Of the many things she hadn’t wanted to happen when she got to know Scanlan, Scanlan getting to know her had slid a bit to the bottom of the list. Realizing they were in fact pretty similar had been somewhat higher. Of course he was good enough with words to throw both grating feelings into one sentence. 

“I’ll work on it if you will,” he offered.

She sighed. He was harder to dislike every day that went past. And she nodded reluctantly. 

This time he smiled very real and she went up the stairs, feeling a bit proud of that in the back of her mind. It was strange to feel. A few weeks ago she thought she may never see him again. A few months ago she wanted him dead. Now she was pleased despite herself when she could make him laugh or inspire him in a song or get him to smile. And she wondered if they weren’t actually doing too bad at this family thing. 

She called back, on her way to her room, “G’night, dad.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~*~*~
> 
> When will our gnomes return? When will this suffering end? 
> 
> Thanks for reading, etc.


End file.
